Man is an inveterate idolater. He loves the things of the world, and he is not particularly enamored of God.
The first command Moses gave to Israel reminded her that she was not to put worldly things before God. And the second command Moses gave to Israel warned her to take care lest she form a worldly conception of God: Thou shall not make for thyself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or in the waters below. In other words, a man can become an idolater because he explicitly rejects God, but he can also become an idolater because he forms an inadequate conception of God. When Israel fashioned the infamous golden calf, her idolatry did not consist in rejecting the Lord, but in identifying the calf with the Lord: When Aaron saw [the calf], he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to YHWH” (Ex. 32:5).
Now in the evangelical church of today, we must beware of the idolatry that comes from forming inadequate conceptions of God. We may say that we worship God the Father and Jesus Christ, but if our conception of God the Father and Jesus Christ is inadequate to the testimony of scripture, then we shall end up worshiping a god of our own making. The scriptures, for example, speak of a god who is holy, righteous, and loving, but if the only god we care to worship is a god who is loving, then we are not really worshiping the god of whom the scriptures speak. Indeed, we shall in the end compound our error by misconstruing the nature of love as well, for the narrowness of our theological vision will prevent us from seeing that it is a holy and righteous love, and leave us to think of it as a heightened form of worldly love. Partial theology leads to distorted theology, and distorted theology leads to idolatry: we end up worshiping Eros rather than YHWH.
"the narrow gate is not stumbled upon; it is found"
In all this we are reminded that the spiritual path we walk is not easy, but difficult. Understandably, we should like for the walking to be light, and for the road to be clear, and for the path to be level. But our master has taught us otherwise and in no uncertain terms: Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it (Matt. 7:13-14). Perhaps the most important word in this passage is the little word “find”: the narrow gate is not stumbled upon; it is found. This means that it must be looked for, which is why so many enter through the broad gate, and so few enter through the narrow gate. The way of life is not for those who wander aimlessly along the broad path, but for those who search intently for the narrow way. Nevertheless, in many of our churches today, leaders are accommodating the gospel more and more to those who have no desire to leave the broad path, and are paying less and less attention to those who ask, seek, and knock. If such churches advance, so much the worse: they are not advancing the Kingdom of God, but the Kingdom of the Prince of this World.
As for our church, let us put away religious trinkets and set childish concepts of God behind us. Let us attain to a conception of God that is truly worthy of worship: and so worship Him acceptably, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:28-29).
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